


bring on the silence

by teaspoonery (quodpersortem)



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-18 04:12:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13092156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quodpersortem/pseuds/teaspoonery
Summary: (livejournal re-post fromhere; mine)rating: pg-13word count: 940[link] pacific kink meme prompt: Snafu/Sledge - kiss in the rain, post-wardate: 2010-07-17





	bring on the silence

Sledge can’t even think of the last day he heard a gun fire, screams of people dying. Or  _when_ , exactly, he saw another fine man tumble down like a doll, falling to the floor as though boneless while in reality he was lifeless. It hurts, it seems as if time froze at some point between Peleliu and China, between boarding the boat that shipped them out of the U.S. and standing on the same harbour’s ground again. America again, at last.   
  
The thought of having left so many of them behind, buried in the sands of Peleliu and Okinawa, hurts so badly he thinks his heart might tear apart, his guts might wrench together and turn into stone. But what hurts most, what possibly hurts most of all, is that he’s being haunted by memories, flutters of images and thoughts he can’t forget about, not when he’s awake and not when he’s asleep and certainly not when he looks at the faces of those who live.   
  
And then there’s Snafu who grabs his sleeve, his duffel bag casually slung over his shoulder and laughing, for some reason he’s _laughing_  and for some reason Sledge is laughing along, even if there’s nothing to laugh about. Rain is pouring down, the deck of the ship was slippery and the air is filled with the smell of dead fish, of dust and traffic gasses coming down from the skies and with human, with sweat and with perfumes mingled and with home, it’s the smell of  _home_ and it’s surprising, it’s shocking. Snafu drags him along through streets, turning right at one corner and then left at another. They find their way to a park, through the park, past a street of ancient looking buildings and via an alley with stinking trash bins they end up in a small secured area of the city. Neither of them have been here before, neither of them will ever visit again, but Snafu’s instinct manages to seclude them from the rest of the world. At least for a little while.  
  
They’re soaked to the skin, but it’s warm and there’s a fresh breeze so they can actually breathe, and with that it’s okay. With a whiff of French fries and hamburgers in the distance, with fresh laundry above them even if it’s still raining. And they are still laughing, and it’s still strange, and they fucking  _clutch_ at each other for seemingly no other reason than prevent themselves from drowning in this new world, in this free world, in this happy world that is blissfully unaware of what they’ve seen.  
  
For some reason it then seems fitting to move in closer to each other, so they find themselves pressed up against each other, only breathing in each other. Their laughter subsides, for some reason the mood grows more oppressive and more serious and more of what it’s always been between the two of them, something they can’t put their finger on, still not, but they move in closer and closer and then their chest bump and their noses touch and it’s a minor cock of the head before Snafu presses his lips against Sledge’s.  
  
It’s a dry kiss, a quiet kiss, it is okay and possibly good but nothing special until the moment Sledge opens his lips a little, presses his tongue against Snafu’s mouth to gain entrance. And Snafu allows it, allows their tongues to slide slippery together, past each other into their mouths, rain running down their faces and sometimes a drop finds a way into their mouths, into both of their mouths at once for they are locked together. Sledge has his hands on Snafu’s arms, moving them slowly up and down, while Snafu occasionally breaks away from Sledge’s mouth to kiss his neck, to nip at his ear, to lick away the little rivers of rainwater running down hot skin. While their eyes remain closed, their bodies seem to invade one another, seem to explore and conquer skin, with Snafu’s hands on Sledge’s hips, on his bum, with their chests pressed together and their mouths still moving, moving without speaking, but moving with feeling, with so much passion and it’s really quite incredible how the world seems to still around them.  
  
The thoughts and memories seem to fade from Eugene’s mind, the traffic noises formerly audible fade into nothing but a vague murmur, the rain on concrete reduces to a tap-tap-tapping he only hears when they breathe, when they lean their foreheads against each other. When they just  _stand_  there, embracing, skin to skin and the memories gone, the silence for once in their minds as well -rather than just around them on the empty deck of the boat.  
  
By the time they try to find their way back to the hotel they stay in, dusk is settling upon the city. They don’t speak, they don’t laugh anymore. Tomorrow the train will bring them home, but for now they’ve just this, just the presence of each other –and it might be closer to home than Sledge has ever felt, Snafu a better family than the people he was born from and grew up with.  
  
* * *  
  
Later, it turns out he doesn’t feel at home at all in the house he grew up in. And before that, only hours before he arrives there, Snafu doesn’t say goodbye, doesn’t leave a note with an address, does nothing except leave.   
  
So all that’s left are memories, and good memories don’t erase the bad. They just, sometimes, make him forget about the war. Sometimes. But to bring on the silence in his head, it’s not sufficient.


End file.
